Mari Travels with Tango

Tango is a journey, not a destination. The most interesting part of it is how you and your co-travellers change when conditions change or new travellers join the tour.

There is something quite unique about these mornings of your favourite tango event, waking up after another afterparty that lasted almost until breakfast time, you feet throbbing, you eyes unable to focus, your mind struggling to grasp the difference between reality and illusion. Perhaps it is the physical exhaustion, being surrounded by others experiencing the same sense of everything happening right now and here, or the music that seems to get under your skin more and more, the further the event progresses. All of a sudden, you have lost all sense of time and place outside the milonga, and find your senses tuned more and more into the frequencies of listening to another person's heart through the movements of their body. On mornings like this, you wake up, and listening to Pugliese is the only logical option. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SExl9L6VC3w

On my way to Riga Tango Marathon, as always opting for the overland (and -sea) mode of travel. Boarding the M/S Star for the first leg of this familiar journey, I became aware of the symbolic importance of these trips that have been a regular part of my life ever since I started dancing tango. In many ways, the Baltic tango community is my home community just as much as the Finnish one. I started travelling for dance quite early on, and have experienced many of the turning  points of my tango life while visiting the events in Latvia and Lithuania. In these years, I became good friends with many of the people who frequent the same events, and they have been by my side at crucial moments, both happy and sad. Meeting every few months, we have seen each other's tango evolve, relationships form (and fall apart), events grow and become popular. We have learned from each other, we have supported and encouraged each other, and little by little, we have formed loose but lasting ties that...

An encounter seen in the supermarket: A little girl, perhaps 4 years old, has seen a cute little dog, lying on the floor about 10 m from where she is sitting with her dad and baby brother. While the dad is keeping busy with the baby, she starts to approach the Westie, looking at the dog with an eager smile on her face. She is not simply walking up to him, but rather, inventing funny poses and movements to catch his eye: Looking at him upside down from between her legs, dropping down to all four and wagging her bottom in an imitation to a dog's invitation to play. The dog can clearly see her but determinedly does Not look at her or express any interest in her. After a while, she gives up and turns back to her family. Clearly, even dogs and little children understand cabeceo perfectly.

One of the most bizarre comments I've been hearing, and not infrequently either, since I started leading, is: "Oh, so you are a man?" While I could somehow understand this coming from an Argentinian as the equivalent for "leading" doesn't seem to be widely used and instead, they just say "dancing the man's role", what puzzles me the most is that it is usually highly educated, modern Nordic women who make this statement. These almost two years of learning to lead have not made  me feel more manly. However, they have definitely given me some insights into what it must be like to "live the man's role' in everyday life. Similarly, I have been delighted to discover how differently men behave, feel and reveal themselves when being led than in any other situation I can think of. The sweetness, softness and openness i have been lucky to glimpse in many of my male followers has truly opened my eyes to how the expectations the society tra...